"But that's... we're partners. I'm - I'm responsible for you, aren't I?" They flinch as they say it, because it wouldn't possibly have come out of them under normal circumstances - because even they didn't know they thought that. But... but maybe... they do, in a sense? Not in the burdensome sense that Frisk had once pinned to Chara. Not as a consequence. Frisk is not, and never will be, a burden.
"Someone has to protect and watch over you." Nobody in the whole underground was on their side the whole way through. Nobody was actually willing to honor that promise. Toriel can't be a mom to them, so someone else has to try and mold themself into something as close to it as they can. "You need someone who'll help you, instead of demanding you SAVE them." They need someone, anyone, who can - who can be safe. Who can give them security and comfort and family and all the things the world keeps cruelly denying a scared, isolated child.
And Chara knows... god, do they know that they're nowhere near fit for the job. They can't be the kind of friend someone always wished they had. They cannot be a Toriel, can't be an adult, no matter how hard they try to act the part, try to play like they have all the answers, try to make like they're the unwavering, infallible guidance. But... but if you can, then you have to. They promised Frisk they'd try. They promised.
"I've... even when you didn't want me around, I've always been keeping you here." The words they used to do it - the borrowed plea to be keep going - those exact words elude their head right now, but they know they were the one thing that denied Frisk the choice to QUIT. The unspoken force that would take something that was supposed to persist and shatter it into fragments, refuse to let it be sacrificed so Asgore could wage a war. They ripped respite out of Frisk's hand by force, but they... "Ever since we met, it's been my duty to keep you here, hasn't it? To make sure that the sort of life that killed me doesn't kill you, too."
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"Someone has to protect and watch over you." Nobody in the whole underground was on their side the whole way through. Nobody was actually willing to honor that promise. Toriel can't be a mom to them, so someone else has to try and mold themself into something as close to it as they can. "You need someone who'll help you, instead of demanding you SAVE them." They need someone, anyone, who can - who can be safe. Who can give them security and comfort and family and all the things the world keeps cruelly denying a scared, isolated child.
And Chara knows... god, do they know that they're nowhere near fit for the job. They can't be the kind of friend someone always wished they had. They cannot be a Toriel, can't be an adult, no matter how hard they try to act the part, try to play like they have all the answers, try to make like they're the unwavering, infallible guidance. But... but if you can, then you have to. They promised Frisk they'd try. They promised.
"I've... even when you didn't want me around, I've always been keeping you here." The words they used to do it - the borrowed plea to be keep going - those exact words elude their head right now, but they know they were the one thing that denied Frisk the choice to QUIT. The unspoken force that would take something that was supposed to persist and shatter it into fragments, refuse to let it be sacrificed so Asgore could wage a war. They ripped respite out of Frisk's hand by force, but they... "Ever since we met, it's been my duty to keep you here, hasn't it? To make sure that the sort of life that killed me doesn't kill you, too."